QUOTE The studio versions are perfect, without a single flaw, but seeing it live has these advantages:
1. The music is being blasted from a precision sound system through many gigantic speakers.
2. Al is right there on stage. RIGHT THERE! IN FRONT OF YOU!
3. The costumes, lights, and fog really contribute.
4. Perhaps because it is possible for Al to mess up on stage, it is even more fabulous when he gets through a whole show without a single mistake.
5. Even if something does get messed up, you are so overwhelmed by the magic of it all to notice. Al could fall right off the stage, and you would just be in a daze, thinking \"Wow, he sure is talented at falling off the stage. Even I can't do that as good as him. He is so multi-talented!\"
1. Although I could wish that those precision speakers weren't blasting QUITE so loud. But then I had the mixed fortune of sitting RIGHT IN FRONT of them at two concerts this summer-- within a few rows of the stage but way off to the side. It was a bit painful, or else I'm getting old.
2. Oh, yes. Oh, indeed yes.
3. Yup.
4. Yup, it certainly adds that necessary edge-of the-seat feeling to the proceedings.
5. He could, and he did, and they did. At Konocti in-- 1999, I think-- Al stepped over the edge of the stage, fell six feet straight down holding his accordion, yelled "Drum solo!" from the place where he landed, and Bermuda filled time until he could get back up onstage. Apparently a lot of people thought it was part of the act. Uh, no. Al finished the show, but he said he had to do several weeks of physical therapy after that. There are some concert excitements I'm willing to do without. It was nerve-wracking enough just watching him fall off his stool.